It turns out that behind the Great Firewall modding is difficult. Gradle is unable to download dependencies since a lot of them are blocked by China. VPNs can help circumvent this, but they aren’t very reliable at the moment. So instead, I leave this review of two mods that I think work well together.

Villager Names

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Villager Names is a simple mod by Serilum that does exactly what you expect. It adds names to all villagers automatically. You’d think that it’s not much, but for me it has a huge impact on villagers and exploration. Instead of encountering random villager #1, you will now encounter Steve the farmer, or Sandy the Blacksmith. Villages have a bit more character thanks to the villagers having names.

It’s impact on gameplay isn’t too strong. Villagers are persistent anyway, so them having a name by default doesn’t really alter their behaviour. Plus, if you really want to rename them, nametags will still work. This makes it a great addition to vanilla-style mod packs.

But be warned, simply by having names you will instinctively imbue them with personality. So you may end up feeling guilty when you build your villager halls full of zombies to infect and cure them. Especially if you combine it with the next mod.

Villager Death Messages

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Villager Death Messages, another mod by Serilum, creates messages that appear in chat when villagers die. It’s an interesting effect when you care about villagers, and suddenly one dies it can make you panic. Is the village under attack?! Is my Villager hub safe? Shit, I need to check on them!

When combined with Serilum’s other mod, it’s impressive how much it changes the emotional impact of a villager death. It wasn’t just a random mob that died. It was Steve. And I really liked Steve! He sold me Mending books!

Again, gameplay impact is minimal, but it will tell players when a nearby villager has died. This can help when constructing iron farms or villager breeders, or other villager contraptions. You will know if a necessary villager has died.

This makes things easier on the technical side of Minecraft, but I think the trade off is worth it personally. For me I’m just impressed how two seemingly simple mods can change the way the game feels so much. I don’t think I’ll play without these two ever again.